Label: Akord Records
Release date: February 2016
Production: Robert Likar
Genre: Hard Rock
Up N’Downs, a rock quintet from Mozirje, are introducing themselves with their studio debut, titled »Vse kar sem pozabil«. The road to that first album was anything but easy. Still, through every trial the wheel of fate threw in their way, the band got tempered, grew, evolved, and came out of each battle stronger and wiser.
The fruit of all that is an album of twelve exceptionally polished tracks. They may start out from a hard rock premise, but the arrangements are wildly bold and varied, so even a casual ear will quickly pick up on touches of pop, blues, funky grooves, even alternative rock (the opener Barve). At last year’s Gitarijada, Up’N’Downs were voted best band by the audience, up against 230 acts. Considering that the famous festival in Zaječar, Serbia was running for the forty-ninth year in a row, it was the first time ever that a Slovenian band took first place. Hats off to them. That win definitely gave the band extra lift and wings to fight their way through to a studio debut.
The engine driving the band is the Zavolovšek brothers, the main musical visionaries, composers and lyricists. They have a rare gift and feel for top-shelf musicality, which they masterfully frame in a picture of hard-hitting, primal rock’n’roll.
Up’N’Downs are incredibly effective at one of the most important parts of writing instantly catchy rock. They know how to build their songs around seriously piercing guitar phrases. These hit a real sonic hunger and bite, and on top of them the band manages to set a catchy musical backdrop that, through the strict use of Slovenian lyrics, rings out as homegrown and one of a kind. That’s instantly recognizable. So Up’N’Downs managed to develop their own distinctive style of original songwriting right from the start, and that’s really the key if you want to spark interest in listeners and leave a mark. »Vse kar sem pozabil« is a radio-friendly album that doesn’t even try to be one, since it’s not chasing hits at all. It speaks to the listener in a totally genuine, spontaneous, unobtrusive way. And even though the members were born in the first half of the nineties, Up’N’Downs sound typically Slovenian hard rock. In that respect, the opening Barve can be called a hidden hit of the kind Siddharta overlooked during their career, and it delivers an extremely punchy start to the album, while later on, for instance, the track Trubadur in Angel rings out as classic hard rock and in its melodies flirts with the image of Slovenian rock acts of the eighties, like Šank rock (a feeling reinforced especially by the excellent ballad Vse kar sem pozabil). In a kinder environment and time for rock, Barve could have become an evergreen mid-wave hit on Slovenian radio stations. It has everything. Groove, a hungry riff, a massive vocal melody that builds a high level of singability in the chorus crescendo.
The crew works incredibly tight. Rhythmically, musically. And so do the songs. Sonically and performance-wise. The vocals of Erik Zavolovšek are piercing, polished, gorgeous, purely authoritative and highly musical, adapting masterfully to the message of the verses and drawing out passionate emotion from them. Then there’s the incredible guitarist David Zavolovšek, who basically has it all figured out. From outstandingly crafted guitar solos, where you can feel inspiration from Slash and Michael Schenker alike, through a sharpened guitar “gear”, the strong character of guitar phrases woven into the arrangements, to all sorts of wildly inventive and sparkling guitar ornaments laid over the lead motifs.
Let’s hope the band keeps going down this path. They’ve got exceptional character and musical potential. Ten tracks would definitely have been enough for this album, and a track or two (especially the ballad) is surely surplus that the band could have saved for the next record. But then again, the album as it stands is a cry of the times in which it developed. It’s an authentic imprint of the few years of history the band has walked through, and it has to be that way for the story to be complete. So expect the follow-up to the debut to serve up even more polished sonic and stylistic coherence, since Up’N’Downs surely won’t need as long a stretch for it as the making of this wildly bold studio debut took. The band is armed with new experience worth its weight in gold, so expect them to enter the recording process for the new album with an even better-developed musical vision. The next album will be stylistically even sharper. So Up N’Downs have dropped their studio debut, which counts as one of the nicest rock surprises ever to come out of Slovenia, and we can safely call it one of the best rock albums to hit the Slovenian music scene this year.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
rating: 9.0 / 10
Tracklist:
1. Barve
2. Prisluhnimo
3. Waco
4. Trubadur in Angel
5. Vse kar sem pozabil
6. Ljubeči Jack / Ain’t Got Nobody
7. Sladke sanje v mračni sobi
8. Komu se dam
9. Svetloba
10. Vlak
11. Stran
12. Lorelaj
Lineup:
Erik Zavolovšek – vocals
David Zavolovšek – guitar, backing vocals
Lucija Hrastnik – keyboards, backing vocals
Andraž Stropnik – bass guitar
Martin Oblak – drums
Matjaž Parfant – backing vocals
